1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to methods of purifying the blood of a living mammal and more particularly relates to therapeutic apheresis.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Therapeutic apheresis is a medical procedure for removing specific entities from the blood of a living mammal and circulating the treated blood in the mammal. Representative of entities which may be removed are blood serum factors, antigens, antibodies, immune complexes and the like.
Plasmapheresis is an apheretic technique whereby whole blood is withdrawn from the mammal in an extracorporeal circuit and separated into its plasma and non-plasma components. In early procedures, the plasma component was discarded and the non-plasma component returned to circulation in the mammal; see for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,086,924. In later procedures, the plasma component was subjected to purification steps and also returned to circulation in the mammal's body; see for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,223,672 and 4,243,532.
The currently available procedures for therapeutic apheresis are fairly sophisticated, requiring highly trained personnel and complicated apparatus. The cost for a single treatment may be as much as a thousand dollars or more. There is therefore a need for an improved procedure which is simpler and less costly to carry out. The method of the present invention is such an improvement, as it relates to the removal of undesirable immunologically reactive blood components from the blood of a living mammal. The method of the invention also improves the safety factors in therapeutic apheresis.